{"id":1595,"date":"2014-02-09T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T18:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/invertedsky.net\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2020-04-30T19:53:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:53:53","slug":"the-future-was-bright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/?p=1595","title":{"rendered":"The Future was Bright"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[This was originally written 4 weeks ago.]<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it&#8217;s the time of year, mid-winter, or perhaps it&#8217;s because my health hasn&#8217;t been 100%, but I&#8217;ve been a little melancholy.<\/p>\n<p>I feel isolated from the world and like it less and less as I get older.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure what to do about it, or even if anything can be done.<\/p>\n<figure><audio controls=\"controls\" preload=\"none\"><source src=\"http:\/\/rssotw.invertedsky.net\/play\/188\/audio.mp3\" type=\"audio\/mpeg\" \/>Sorry. Broswer can&#8217;t\/won&#8217;t play audio.<\/audio><figcaption>Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark &#8211; Atomic Ranch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I got the latest O.M.D. album, English Electric.\u00a0 When I first listened to it, I smiled.\u00a0 It was as if my previous life in 1981 was still going on without me, and listening to this album was like checking in to see how things are going.\u00a0 Many of the songs are about how life goes on, we&#8217;ve entered the\u00a0future we envisioned in 1981\u00a0and it isn&#8217;t what we hoped it would be.\u00a0 1981 was 33 years ago.\u00a0 1981 is significant because\u00a0it is when I first heard of O.M.D. and bought their first album.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like nothing positive that I envisioned about the future has come true.\u00a0 Yet, most everything negative I could have imagined, mostly originating\u00a0in the science fiction realm has come to pass.<\/p>\n<p>Jokingly, I could ask &#8220;where is my flying car?&#8221;\u00a0 But I never believed we&#8217;d have those because they&#8217;re called airplanes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1600\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0523.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1600\" src=\"http:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0523-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"Sunset overhead at Mud Lake.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0523-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0523-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0523.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1600\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sunset overhead at Mud Lake.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But, where is the clean energy future &#8212; my hydrogen powered car?\u00a0 Better transportation systems? Where is world peace?<\/p>\n<p>Instead I live in a country with a war mongering government that is controlled by extremely (too) large corporations, that spies on its citizens.\u00a0 The surveillance state.\u00a0 Civilian law enforcement has become militarized and out of control.\u00a0 And we are still on a diet of fossil fuels.\u00a0 Corporations pay their workers less, expect them to work longer hours with fewer benefits.\u00a0 No one gets a raise anymore, yet the stock prices climb.<\/p>\n<p>There is no privacy.\u00a0 My Apple iSpy smart phone constantly tracks my location and reports it to god knows who.\u00a0 The corporations keep track of who I communicate with for god knows why.\u00a0 Every purchase I make is tracked and saved.\u00a0 I&#8217;m just a wallet to them.<\/p>\n<p>Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden risk their lives to reveal what our government is up to, and nobody outside the government really cares.\u00a0 As long as there is Facebook and Twitter the only important news is <em>me<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve spent the last few months working long days, 6 to 7 days a week.\u00a0 For a moment I thought I was saving up money. I paid my estimated taxes and learned all that hard work didn&#8217;t amount to anything.\u00a0 Now I&#8217;m expected to buy medical insurance with such a high deductible that I&#8217;ll never use it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll be fined if I don&#8217;t buy it.<\/p>\n<p>Corporations will get their money no matter what.<\/p>\n<p>The electric utility is raising electric rates because many people have put up solar panels and they can&#8217;t make as much money.\u00a0 The phone company that provides landlines and internet has raised their rates to make up for the customers lost to cellular technology.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1601\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0518.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1601\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1601\" src=\"http:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0518-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"ml-0518\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0518-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0518-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ml-0518.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1601\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The color of the sky turns the snow orange.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Somehow I continue on.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"300\" height=\"43\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"file=http:\/\/rssotw.invertedsky.net\/playlist\/140\/pl.xml&amp;shuffle=false&amp;repeat=false\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/rssotw.invertedsky.net\/mp3player.swf\" \/><embed width=\"300\" height=\"43\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/rssotw.invertedsky.net\/mp3player.swf\" flashvars=\"file=http:\/\/rssotw.invertedsky.net\/playlist\/140\/pl.xml&amp;shuffle=false&amp;repeat=false\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This was originally written 4 weeks ago.] Perhaps it&#8217;s the time of year, mid-winter, or perhaps it&#8217;s because my health hasn&#8217;t been 100%, but I&#8217;ve been a little melancholy. I feel isolated from the world and like it less and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/?p=1595\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/2236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invertedsky.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}